Swarming bees close Manhattan GameStop

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

There are many things that can force a retail store to close. Not enough staff, no stock, a water leak, electricity failure, or the manager might have forgotten the keys. But some more unusual reasons for store closures do occur, and a GameStop store in Manhattan kept its doors closed for over two hours last week for one reason: bees.

The GameStop is located on Union Square and a large swarm of bees appeared from buildings located on 4th Avenue and Irving Place. But the hive seemed to be located directly behind the walls of the store and for some reason they decided to start swarming outside the store entrance. What game release had upset them so much you may ask?

The employees in the store were eventually able to exit when Edward Albers, an amateur bee keeper came to their rescue. He didn’t want to wait for other bee keepers to arrive as he feared for the safety of some of the onlookers. He said:

I’ve seen people handle bees before and if they’re calm, the bees won’t sting … I decided that, with all the strollers and babies around, it could have been a bad afternoon. It was such a nice holiday. The last thing I wanted was a bunch of people getting stung.

Edward’s attempt to disperse them with a camera flash didn’t work so he started collecting them in plastic bags. Now the authorities are using a professional to track down specifically where the queen bee and the hive are for removal.

Matthew’s Opinion
If nothing else it made for a quiet day for the GameStop staff. When asked why revenue was down for that day by GameStop management the best answer they could give is, “bees blocked customer entry to store”.

If onlookers claims of thousands of bees are true then I’m surprised no one noticed and reported a possible hive before. With that many bees flying around regularly someone would surely notice, but it depends on the route they normally took between the buildings.

There are many reasons why the bees swarmed and it could just be part of their annual lifecycle. They just happened to choose an inconvenient place to do it in. It may be that the original hive is no longer being used and the bees have found a new place to start a hive. Who knows which store will be struck next!